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Hitachi Creates Quartz Glass Archival Medium

Posted by Unknown on from the hand-me-that-data-crystal dept.

guttentag writes "Hitachi has announced (original press release in Japanese, translated to English) a new storage medium that uses a laser to imprint dots on a piece of quartz glass that correspond to binary code. The dots can be read with an optical microscope and appropriate software. The company says this medium is resistant to extreme heat, radiation, radio waves and should still be readable after a few hundred million years. It's intended as an archival format with data density similar to a music CD (40MB per square inch with 4 layers)."

10 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. No better way by Sparticus789 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Finally, a long term solution so that my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandkids can see my baby pictures, listen to my Fallout Boy CDs, and watch my disturbing pr0n collection. I'll order a dozen!

    --
    sudo make me a sandwich
    1. Re:No better way by CanHasDIY · · Score: 5, Funny

      Finally, a long term solution so that my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandkids can see my baby pictures, listen to my Fallout Boy CDs, and watch my disturbing pr0n collection. I'll order a dozen!

      ***DRM ERROR - Could Not Contact Authentication Server***

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
  2. The first thing to record by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dear Hitachi,

    please record the video "Never Gonna Give You Up", so that all future generations are able to get rick-rolled. And label the disc "soft porn" to ensure they'll work at decoding the data.

    1. Re:The first thing to record by EkriirkE · · Score: 4, Funny

      Careful, what people consider sexual varies culture to culture - you're going to start a future where everyone masturbates to the video.

      --
      from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
      to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
    2. Re:The first thing to record by modecx · · Score: 3, Funny

      You mean to tell me nobody else does that now?

      --
      Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
  3. A few hundred million years later by ByteSlicer · · Score: 4, Funny

    Scientist 1 : Look! We found these crystals with dots on it. We believe they're some ancient data storage discs.
    Scientist 2 : Cool! What do they say?
    Scientist 1 : We don't know, we need the software to decode them.
    Scientist 2 : And where is the software?
    Scientist 1 : We're pretty sure it's on one of the discs...
    (Scientist 1 : Also, we need a running DRM server, whatever that may be)

    1. Re:A few hundred million years later by Sparticus789 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I am Sparticus and my collection is amazing.

      --
      sudo make me a sandwich
  4. Most Excellent! by carrier+lost · · Score: 3, Funny

    100 million years, right?

    ' That means I can use this to store my music collection until I finally have time to categorize and playlist it.

    --
    XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
    1. Re:Most Excellent! by Malizar · · Score: 4, Funny

      And it may be out of copyright by then.

  5. Re:Long term data archival by Yvan256 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Civilization in a bottle: Not as easy as it sounds.

    I don't know about bottles, but Sid Meier can put Civilization on a plastic disc.